A Journey
A journey of about a hundred miles took us across one county, through a second and to the far side of a third, and as we went I began to appreciate the change of scene. We are stay-at-home people, used to our own locality and content with its beauty, which has to do with rugged skylines, stunted oaks, stands of fir and clusters of white-washed farm buildings about as old as the hills them- selves. Used to a particular scene, a back- ground of humped hills and rock outcrops, we tend to take it for granted until we go on a journey. Somewhere along the road we encounter the first farm buildings of red brick, the first village that has no lime-crusted cottages, and somewhere we leave behind the last of the little chapels that are thick even in remote places in Wales. One's awareness of change is slow in taking shape in such circumstances as ours, but all at once it seems that the trees are taller, the fields somehow softer in appearance and on those orderly squares of ground between such tidy woods pheasants feed as unconcernedly as though they were peacocks or guinea fowls kept for show. The change is delightful and yet the return to more familiar scenes is warmly comforting. It is pleasant to journey but good to come home again.
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